For the United States, the result of this election is of greater consequence than usual, given the strong support Howard has given the Bush administration in Iraq and in fighting the "war on terrorism" in the volatile Southeast Asian region. Latham's party is promising to withdraw Australian military personnel from Iraq by Christmas and wants Australia to take a more assertive role in its 60-year-old alliance with the United States.

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Howard, 65, is seeking a fourth term in office. He was first elected in 1996 (Australian elections are held every two to three years). His opponent, 43, has been leader of the Australian Labor Party for only 10 months and, in contrast to Howard's emphasis during this election campaign on Australia's booming economy and his experience as prime minister, Latham has been talking about increasing funding for the health and education systems.

But it's on the foreign and defense policy front that the two leaders and their parties are most at odds. Howard has been one of President Bush's staunchest allies in the Iraq war. Australia committed 8,000 military personnel to the conflict, and around 800 remain in Iraq. The ALP opposed Australia's participation in the war from the outset, and Latham is sticking by a promise made earlier this year to withdraw remaining Australian military personnel there by Christmas despite the deteriorating security situation in the country.

Howard's government says that withdrawal of troops by Christmas is mistaken. "I don't think you ever defeat evil by running from evil," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told the media Saturday.

But Latham says Australia's commitment to Iraq has made Australia a more likely terrorist target and diverted attention from the need to increase security closer to home. Two near neighbors -- Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world, and the Philippines -- are both battling to control terrorist cells within their countries and 88 Australians were killed in a bomb that exploded in a popular Bali nightclub Oct. 12, 2002.

It appears that the weight of expert opinion is on Latham's side. In response to a bomb that exploded outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta on Sept. 8, Allan Behm, a senior Australian Defense Department official, told The Age newspaper that Australia's participation in the Iraq war has heightened the chances of a terrorist attack on Australian facilities and individuals. "There are more people with more anger seeking to direct their anger at us for what they think is a war against Islam," Behm said. "We know it's not, but that's how it's represented in much of the Islamic press."

Behm's views coincide with those of Aldo Borgu, an expert in Australia's national security. Borgu wrote in a report released last month by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (a government-funded think tank) that it is wrong to believe that Australia can make foreign-policy decisions "without consideration of the consequences."

If Latham is elected, the United States will have to learn not to take Australian support for granted. In contrast to Howard's boast in 2002 that Australia is the United States' "deputy sheriff" in the volatile Asia-Pacific region, a Latham government is promising "robust support for the U.S. alliance" but not "automatic compliance with every aspect of U.S. foreign policy," according to the ALP's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd.

And while Howard has adopted the Bush administration's belief in the right of a country to launch a pre-emptive strike if it believes its interests are in imminent danger, Rudd says the ALP does "not support pre-emption as a valid military doctrine ... we would not see ourselves doing so in the future, either."

On June 19, Howard made a number of Asian leaders nervous by committing Australia to participating in the Bush administration's "son of Star Wars" missile-defense program. The Labor Party, aware of those misgivings, has indicated it opposes Australia's participation. A Labor spokesman on defense matters, Chris Evans, said July 8 that the Bush administration's missile-defense program "has the potential to undermine non-proliferation and derail world progress toward nuclear disarmament, particularly in our own Asia-Pacific region."

Because of its stability and economic strength, Australia is a key player in helping to stabilize Southeast Asia.

Saturday is shaping up to a critical day for the United States-Australia alliance. If Mark Latham's team wins, a Bush or Kerry administration will have to get used to a more lively relationship between the countries. Given the folly of Iraq, most Australians would view that as not a bad thing.